


Grandmother Dragon

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Category: Enchanted Forest Chronicles - Patricia Wrede
Genre: Anthropology, Babysitting, Conversations, Cultural Differences, Dragons, Gap Filler, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-27 00:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14414046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: In which Kazul looks after Daystar and Telemain while Cimorene and Morwen take a day off. (The baby is much easier to handle.)





	Grandmother Dragon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wistfulmemory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wistfulmemory/gifts).



> Written 4/22/18, for [wistfulmemory](https://wistfulmemory.dreamwidth.org), in response to the prompt: _I would like the prompt "The Age of Reason" with Telemain having to explain something complicated to Kazul_. It is also a fill for the [Genprompt Bingo](https://genprompt_bingo.dreamwidth.org) square _the age of reason_.
> 
> I reversed the scenario, because reasons. :)

"It's not complicated," Kazul said irritably as she rocked Daystar's cradle in the grassy clearing outside Cimorene's new house. "Humans are the ones who can't use words sensibly, always gluing extra assumptions onto perfectly simple ideas. I never said my son was my new grandchild's sire. I said he was its father."

Telemain blinked. "I... take it that those concepts are not synonymous among dragons?"

Kazul reminded herself that Morwen was fond of the magician, that he was a staunch ally against the wizards, and that it was rude to eat people one knew in social contexts, particularly in front of small children. (Even if the small child in question was fast asleep and would never know. Cimorene would know, when she and Morwen returned from their well-earned day of relaxation at a famous spa in Kaltenmark, and Kazul didn't need that kind of trouble.)

"Yes," she said, letting a trickle of smoke waft between her teeth on the sibilant. "One is biological. The other is social. Obviously one dragon can fill both roles, but it's not required. In fact, most hatchlings have several fathers, given prevailing gender ratios and the difficulty of keeping an eye on small individuals with much more physical initiative than good sense. I had six myself."

"That sounds potentially overwhelming," Telemain said, "not to mention crowded. How on earth do you go about organizing-- wait, prevailing gender ratios? I'm no expert in the social sciences, but why would that be an issue when dragons can choose your own biological sexes? Wouldn't a roughly one-to-one ratio be the most efficient for--"

Kazul snapped her teeth together with a deliberately exaggerated click. Telemain, in a rare display of common sense, stopped talking.

"Do you remember what I said about humans gluing extra assumptions onto simple ideas?" Kazul asked. "You're doing it again. Stop."

Telemain took a deep breath, visibly rearranged his thoughts, opened his mouth, and then paused to rearrange his thoughts again. Finally he said, "My apologies. Would you be willing to explain the reasons behind dragon gender ratios, and what effects those ratios have on your... do you still call them family structures? Or is that another place where our definitions diverge?"

Kazul smiled and reached into the cradle with a single, careful talon to tug Daystar's blanket up over his torso. He sighed in his sleep, drooled a bit, and wrapped four tiny, pudgy fingers around her claw. She allowed him to hold her captive. (It was a pity she couldn't introduce Daystar to any of her grandchildren yet -- human infants were far too fragile, even discounting the business with the sword and the wizards -- but with a pinch of luck, they might still become friends when the war was over.)

"You're learning," she said to Telemain. "And that depends. How do you define a family?"

Telemain frowned. "That's a surprisingly difficult question, now that I think about it. I believe I once read a description in one of de Groot's manuals on inheritance-linked spells that began by separating families of blood and families of choice, continued through a discussion of marriage structures and their varying effects on family curses, and detoured through property rights before--"

Humans did love to complicate things. But they made the world more interesting as a result, and there were worse ways to fill a quiet summer afternoon than an impromptu discussion of interspecies anthropology. (And babysitting, of course, but that went without saying.)


End file.
